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Foot-Dragging on HIPAA Breach Notice Costs Illinois Health System

An Illinois health system has reached a $475,000
settlement over allegations it waited too long to report a data breach, the first time the government
has settled over untimely breach notifications.

Presence Health uncovered a data breach on Oct. 22, 2013 affecting 836 individuals,
but didn’t report the breach to affected individuals until Feb. 3, 2014, the HHS Office
for Civil Rights said Jan. 9. In addition to the $475,000 payment, Presence agreed
to enter into a two-year corrective action plan.

The settlement is a clear example of the OCR sending a message to the provider community
that it’s seriously enforcing breach notifications, Colin Zick, a health-care attorney
with Foley Hoag LLP in Boston, told Bloomberg BNA.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s Breach Notification
Rule, organizations have an obligation to notify affected individuals, media outlets
and the Department of Health and Human Services within 60 days of the discovery of
a breach.

Zick said it didn’t appear that Presence Health deliberately violated the rule, noting
the health system said the delay was due to an internal “miscommunication.”
Nevertheless, the settlement reinforces that the 60-day notice period is real and
meaningful to the OCR, Zick said.

Presence didn’t admit to any liability in the settlement, but the OCR said that didn’t
mean Presence wasn’t in violation of the HIPAA rules.

Notifying Individuals

Failing to notify the OCR of a data breach in a timely fashion may not be among the
most serious of HIPAA violations, but failing to notify affected individuals within
60 days can be a major problem, Eric Fader, a health-care attorney with Day Pitney
LLP in New York, told Bloomberg BNA.

The Presence breach doesn’t appear have involved Social Security numbers, and likely
won’t run the risk of identity theft, but delays in notifying individuals can prevent
them from taking immediate actions to protect themselves, such as changing passwords
or enrolling in credit monitoring services, Fader said.

Fader said he didn’t think there would be more settlements involving a lack of timely
breach notification, as the rule isn’t complicated and the OCR may feel that it has
made its point.

If there are further settlements, they might center on failure to notify the OCR of
smaller breaches (affecting fewer than 500 people), Fader said.

Beyond the specifics of the settlement, Fader said, it was interesting that it involved
a breach of paper records.

The OCR lately has focused exclusively on breaches involving electronic protected
health information, and Fader said the last settlement involving paper records was
the November 2015 Triple-S settlement, which focused on the disclosure of protected
health information on pamphlets that were mailed to beneficiaries of a Medicare Advantage
plan.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Swann in Washington at
jswann1@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kendra Casey Plank at
kcasey@bna.com

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